CARSON – The rule of fractured thumb is that most news in an NFL training camp is bad news.

It is also the rule of hamstring, embolism, stress fracture, holdout and sprained ankle.

The Chargers, on the cusp of something big for approximately the 25th time in their history, do not have their top running back, their top receiver, their left tackle and their Defensive Rookie of the Year.

Good training camps are defined almost solely on who is ready for Week 1. That is still three weeks off, but Chargers fans are bitterly accustomed to Jack Murphy’s Law.

The least of their worries was this 19-17 preseason loss to New Orleans Sunday. The Chargers led 17-3 when most of their consequential guys played, and they gave up the lead because the Saints went with third-string QB Taysom Hill, who is a perplexing weapon even at midseason.

Rookie QB Easton Stick had a chance to move the Chargers to the winning field goal with 1:05 remaining and a timeout on the board.

He got sacked, threw a sweet 44-yarder down the middle to Artavis Scott, and then got intercepted by Colton Jumper, which pleased the Saints fans that turned this place into an open, tiny-house Superdome.

It wasn’t a big game. It was a bunch of little games, meaningless to most, vital to some.

Trent Scott, an undrafted free agent last year, is Russell Okung’s stand-in at left tackle. He picked up a penalty and allowed a sack when Tyrod Taylor didn’t get rid of the ball on time, but otherwise looked fine.

Derwin James’ stress fracture means some adjustment in the Chargers’ deep secondary, and that was fine, too. The Saints only had four first downs in the first half.

“Offensively we were awful,” said Sean Payton, the New Orleans coach.

The Chargers’ Troymaine Pope, on his sixth NFL team in his fourth season, burst for an 81-yard touchdown on a punt return. That means something.

So did the 24-yard touchdown pass from Cardale Jones to Andre Patton, also in the second quarter. Patton caught three other balls for a total of 62 yards. It means the third-year receiver might finally see some given Sundays.

“There are position battles going on at wide receiver,” Coach Anthony Lynn said. “Andre made a move today.”

Patton played reliably at Rutgers, but didn’t light up enough stopwatches to get drafted. The Chargers signed him as a free agent.

His training camp was good enough to get him on the practice squad. Last year, too.

Technically you’re ineligible for the practice squad when you reach Year 3, but teams do find loopholes. If Keenan Allen is out for a while, it helps Patton. On Sunday, he helped himself.

“I saw that look they gave us all week in practice,” said Patton, since New Orleans worked out with the Chargers on Thursday and Friday. “It was there, and I just took it.”

He gave a pretty good impression of an NFL receiver, and that’s what he’s been doing the past two years, generally on weekdays. The practice squad wears “pinnies” in the color of the Sunday opponent and runs the same stuff. It certainly beats clerical work. But it’s also 17 weeks of drudgery that follow six weeks of stress, when all that’s on the line is your livelihood.

“You got 90 guys on the team,” Patton said. “I don’t really think about it when the game is going on.”

Patton said meditation helps. For several years he has been a yoga practitioner, going through the routines with the help of Ompractice, which brings yoga to his computer screen. He and his former girlfriend, who has been a member of the Brooklyn Nets’ dance team, have used it together.

“It’s a little harder to find time during the season,” Patton said. “In the offseason you do it three or four times a week. Absolutely, it helps you mentally.”

Patton also toes the mental line when it comes to all those practice-squad days: “You have to bring the same mentality as the guys on the 52 (man roster). I try not to hone in on what the coaches are doing, whether they’re noticing me or not. If I run the right routes and catch the ball and do my assignments, that’s what I need to do.”

So the end zone was not the end result. There are two more preseason games that will be little noted nor long remembered except by those whose careers swing by their threads. Patton knows that.

“But the touchdown can’t hurt,” he said, hinting at a smile. “I think it did me justice.”

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